Papa John Is Mad About Obama Care

now what does that have to do with obama care, papa john, pizza, pay wages, or pretty much anything to do with the subject of the thread?

 

i don't know, you asked me the off topic question.

 

this was before i went off topic, i was just confused how you said it if it was on topic. or why you would say it otherwise.

 

I happen to feel that the divisions between groups that disagree are bigger because of the general culture, not because of the number of issues the govt involves itself in. I would throw out these ideas...
1. People have abdicated their responsibility to think for themselves and develop critical thinking skills. They are too busy with "i want mine" and consuming mindless drivel in the form of "entertainment".
2. The media is both creating the impression of, and driving, divisiveness.
Example. Humor me and watch this Individual.
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=173364

That says it all. To me.

A LARGE PORTION OF THIS COUNTRY ARE WATCHING CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ETC, AND GET SUCKED INTO THIS DEVISIVE US VS THEM GAME THAT IS AT THE ROOT OF ALL THIS "DIVISION"

I think I finally got where you're coming from. We are not a collective society because we never have and never will all agree on anything. You've made a few other statements like that and it's beginning to sink in now.
Unless every last person agrees with a stance, it's open season.

To me, that is the opposite of how a successful society works. With that approach, the divisions will grow and we can just start aligning with the side that best suits us and have another civil war.

That is how it has always been. Again, becoming clear. Democracy is a nice term to throw around until a law is imposed on you that you don't like.
There never has and never will be a law passed on which every single person agrees. They will always be imposed on someone. That is a democratic society.
I'm no longer scratching my head, I'm shaking it in sadness.

I engaged you in discussion in the spirit and belief that people can have thoughtful discourse and find common ground. I still believe that. But apparently until every single person comes round to your way of thinking it will just be "a waste of time".

Collective Society = A group with common interests and goals, agreeing to work together.

Dictatorship= My way or the highway.

 

Something I came across recently.

Dear Mr. President: During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive Shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive Brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone. While glancing over her Patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based on the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear. Respectfully, STARNER JONES, MD

 

So much for trying to return this thread to it's main point.

Can you define what you call the "general culture' in terms which would be acceptable and agreed to by all American citizens? I still believe it is primarily the issues that divide us, and government intrudes on us in attempting to impose the acceptance of a single view on each issue where people disagree.
1&2. Why would you suggest I should watch what I assume is some "mindless drivel in the form of entertainment" after immediately after complaining about it?

Are those the Right wing supportive media outlets? Most of my sources of information come from videos or audios of politicians, and government provided data related to what I consider to be issues needing attention. The news media, TV, radio, and print, have long been recognized by me as having an agenda which has been more harmful than helpful.

You are correct only partially, yes, we are not a collective society, in fact we are a great many societies with both differences and similarities from and to one another, who under laws which the vast majority of us agree to and accept in application to how we interact with one another. There is little or nothing that every last person is likely to agree on, but as our Constitution provides, it is a super majority that is required to bring about changes which then are applied to all. Elections, elevating persons to serve in political office only require a majority vote, and that should never be seen as giving them power to bring about changes which were not first given their position to hold directly by the people.

But we are NOT a Democracy, but a Republic made up of 50 States with powers of the Federal government limited and confined to what the people and the States have agreed to allow to be exercised by the Federal government as defined and enumerated within our Constitution. Democracy, in the form of a simple majority, is put to use only as the means by which we determine who will be empowered to apply and enforce the laws which WE, the people, and the States, have allowed them to exercise. There is a difference between having the power to govern and having the power to rule over a society made up of societies.

If you can come to recognize and accept the fact that finding common ground is NOT always achieved by acceptance of a single answer to every issue, then progress is possible. There are some issues which agreement may never be possible and that is where as a Nation we exhibit freedom in a way that has never before been achieved. If a person finds one State to be governed to Liberally, or too Conservatively, freedom can be exercised by moving to a more suitable location.

I don't disagree at all with that.

And wouldn't you agree that by allowing the Federal government to eliminate access to that highway, by forcing each and every State to abdicate their authority to only what the Federal government allows without need of consent by both the States and the people as allowing the Federal government to operate more like a Dictatorship?

As an example, what about the States who legalized marijuana, with consent given by the voters of their States, who then found the Federal government overruling them?

 

I tried to add to your reputation, as I have tried to do numerous times to others posts, but always receive the same message when trying to do so,

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to pensfan13 again."

Is there some magic number of persons you must add Reputation to before giving a second time? I've done so to at least 7 persons, and perhaps even more as best I remember, and find I am unable to add to anyones Reputation that I had previously added to.

Note: Just checking, I notice that I am allowed to proceed if I click on someone who I disagree with, but none of those I DO agree with. I see no point in adding to the Reputation of those I disagree with in order to be allowed to add to the Reputation of those I do agree with. I have in addition given a disagree with to several persons, but only a very few, perhaps 3 total.

 

I think it might be 20 different people before you can rep the same person again.

 

I wonder if negative reps count toward the cumulative number, as it's quite difficult to find 20 different person to give an honest positive rep to on a Forum such as this, and I prefer to offer praise where due, and allow the discussion to suffice in displaying differences of opinions.

 

I don't know. I have never given negative rep. I just ignore those people's posts. I guess you could try that to find out.

 

a neg rep for this post? really Individual?

 

You're right, I was so hastily looking for someone I had not given a Rep to previously, I didn't read the content of the particular post I used, only thinking of what had been posted by you in the past, and I couldn't think of anything you posted that I had agreed with you on. I don't believe I included any negative comment along with it, did I?

The reality of it is that there was a post made some time ago which I really thought deserved a positive Rep, but it appears you have to exceed some magic number, or achieve some form of equality or fairness in the distribution of Reps given before you can give the same person a Rep for something worthy of receiving one. I believe I'm up to about 14 or 15 Reps given over the years I been on these forums.

 

No, I can't. Nothing is acceptable and agreed to by all American citizens. That's what I was saying.
And it's lunacy to think that will ever happen.

I'm seeing that now. You see issues as a wedge dividing us rather than how can we come together and make progress on issues.

If you had taken 2 mins to watch it you would understand. It illustrated precisely how the media is driving attitudes of divisiveness and "us against them". And a lot of people buy into that shit. I never said you get your news from sources like that, I don't know you that well. Not every sentence I say or point I try to illustrate is a direct attack on you. But no matter how I phrase it it seems to me you take it that way. Maybe just my perception.

No. One was "left wing" the other "right wing". If you'd looked at it you'd know.

Ok then we roughly agree. You don't have to defend your sources as I wasn't attacking them. Many in this country believe CNN and Fox was my point, again, not everything I posted is a personal attack on you.

That was sarcasm. Yes we are. Webster:

As mentioned earlier, this defines neighborhoods, states and our country. Why do you insist post after post on dividing the nation rather than uniting it?

Yep. And I'd still be in the UNITED States of America. Unless I got so fed up with the US that I left the country. I'd rather stay and be one that makes its better rather than one that divides it.
Found a better country than ours yet?

I disagree with that obviously. Somehow I take your posts as suggesting I disagree with states rights. I do not. I do however don't take the fundamentalist view that the Constitution is a perfect document, never to be questioned, to be the absolute word forever more. The marijuana argument is a perfect example of the American SOCIETY working out a disagreement. State by State. Not unlike the slavery issue.
Which rather than being worked out, lead to states flipping the bird at the Federal govt, crying foul and leaving the Union, and ending up in civil war.

Ready to go to civil war to settle marijuana prohibition or health care?
I'd prefer we work it out.

It's ok to veer to a discussion of rep points though.

 

As we appear to be in agreement with what you have posted above, I'm left to wonder how you are defining what you termed the "general culture". Is it something that a simple majority of Americans agree on, a simple majority of elected politicians agree on, or what?

Issues which we cannot find agreement on, are the sources that are put to use by politicians in dividing us, and quite effectively it would appear. Most people vote for politicians based on the issues they would like imposed upon those who disagree with them rather than having the oppositions candidate impose something they disagree with on them.

You could have used just a few words to make your point and I probably would have agreed with you. I don't recall insinuating that I felt you were attacking me, so why would you feel that way?

Probably true, but I haven't watched any of them for nearly 2 decades, and I'm sure nothing has improved.

As my sources are those who actually govern, and the words they utter in public, I hope you do attack them when they are wrong. And drop the belief that I am taking any of your posts as a personal attack on me, unless that is what you would like me to believe.

In some ways that may be true, but in just as many and perhaps even more ways we often are not.
The choices we make which do not impose upon or do harm to others is a primary source of our freedom. While there may be those who make choices that I totally disagree with, or view as being harmful to themselves, I retain a freedom to exercise an opinion and as long as they do no harm to me or impose upon me, I have no right to interfere.

UNITED, and NOT UNITARY States of America, right?
I did get fed up, and recognized the fact that things will probably have to get much worse before they can get better, and at my age there is little or nothing I can do to bring about change for the better, and it may be many generations before positive change may begin, so I left to a place where I can live out my remaining life in relative peace and tranquility. You seem to imply that disagreeing with your views, I am divisive, when I simply support a view along with many others which is diametrically opposite of yours, and we seem incapable of finding or even attempting to find common ground which we can agree on.

I'm glad to hear that you do agree to States rights, and even more important I hope you agree that peoples rights are sovereign most and States rights should only be what are allowed by the people to exercise over them.
I have never claimed the Constitution to be a perfect document, and have even commented that there are at least a couple of Amendments that I feel should be repealed. It is however the basis of law under which our elected representatives to Federal office should confine themselves to exercise over both the States and the people.

Actually I'm not ready to go to war over anything which does not pose a direct threat to myself or family. Marijuana is of no interest to me, and I could care less if people use it or not, as long as they don't push it on me, or my family. Health care, in my opinion, is a red herring issue used as a political tool by politicians to great effect, and will become an issue which only grows larger and more costly with time until it becomes a catastrophe which cannot be resolved in any way acceptable by the public.

Yes, since I have been trying to give a Rep within this thread related to the topic.

 

Indie

This is why political debate is so important – ideas are put forward and if they stand up to criticisms better than others then they are more likely to be better ideas than those that cannot be defended from criticism.

The problem is that some people (like you) would seemingly like to impose ideas that they (like you) are totally incapable of defending from criticism.

 

I don't propose imposing any ideas on anyone, but only support each persons freedom to make their own choices. If your ideas, or those of another are so much better then simply put them to work in areas where the vast majority believe in them and demonstrate their superiority, which if you can would allow other areas to choose them rather than have them imposed upon them. At the same time if your ideas prove to have undesirable consequences or ineffective, the entire population does not suffer.

 

an interesting quote here being over half of the voting population wanted obama but in every poll over half didnt want obamacare.

 

Only if you assume the election was based upon a single issue, and that being Obamacare.

 

Indie

Things you have proposed would be imposed such as the forced labour scheme you put forward.

Also you have suggested that wealth should have greater voting power so that it could 'impose' its interests and blocking the will of the majority.

Also as has been explained to you many times - the number and range of choices open to someone can be vastly different, according to whom they are born. A criticism of your ideas that you still have not been able to address in anything like a rational or reasonable way.

 

i mentioned earlier that i thought obamacare should go to a public vote. so if things were the way i think they should be obama would win the election and obamacare would be voted out.
i dont believe in voting on one issue i believe in voting on every issue that dosnt require an immediate response.

edit: im still trying to figure out why some laws i get to vote on in the general election while others are forced on me.